Prometheus After - Translation Notes
by Totem Of Storms
Summary: En route to the Engineer homeworld, David makes some notes about the things that he has discovered from the ship's records.


**Flight day 6.**

Doctor Shaw has now been in hibernation for three days. The design of Engineer hibernation capsule is incredibly sophisticated and adaptable. I believe that I had now properly calibrated the capsule to support Humans. There are no apparent signs of brain damage from my early efforts.

I have continued making repairs to my body. Today I managed to wiggle one of my toes. Work is slow while I am also attempting to translate the records that I have found within this ship.

The translation efforts are proceeding somewhat better, as my inability to use my left arm does not seriously impede by ability to access their computers, and I do not need to work purely by touch as with the repairs to my spinal data lines. The Engineers have kept very complete records, and their language appears to have changed only marginally over the thousands of years that the records cover.

Doctors Holloway and Shaw appear to have been correct in their belief that the Engineers (I continue to use that term, as their name for themselves currently eludes me), helped Human life to become established on the Earth. To what degree remains something of a mystery; the match between their DNA and Human DNA suggests a common heritage, and yet their records do not go back far enough to account for them assisting Humans in starting to evolve. I expect to find more in later records.

**Flight day 9.**

I have determined the Engineer's name for the black slime which we uncovered in the vases. They appear to refer to it as the Cup of Fire, and to have regarded it as the pinnacle of their scientific development, greater even than the FTL drive which they have developed. The nature and purpose of it is not well documented; those records given explicit details are protected by passwords that I cannot begin to guess at. I have begun to uncover some aspects of it however, and they are intriguing.

**Flight day 15.**

My research has been on hold for several days while I completed my own repairs. Today I was able to walk around the control chamber, and I have improvised a series of mirrors so that I can now see what I am doing rather than having to work by touch. I intend to spend the next few days on repairs before moving on to the translation again.

**Flight day 45.**

My access to the ship's records appears to have been cut short somehow. I suspect the agency of a security system of some kind objecting to the number of incorrect passwords that I have entered, inadvertently or otherwise. I am holding off making further efforts until I can check everything properly.

In the mean time I can record what I have discovered. I imagine that Doctors Holloway and Shaw would be very happy with my discovery, since it implies that they may still be able to meet their Engineers.

The age of the facility on LV-223 is hard to determine, though I believe it to be in the region of sixty thousand years. There is reference to it being part of a terraforming effort, and there is an implication that it was a replacement for an old facility elsewhere. The Cup of Fire was developed at this other facility and the research was transferred to this new facility to continue it while the terraforming went on.

The Enkindlers record their ownership of this facility during this time. The artistic style is clear, and has a lot of similarities to those found in ancient cultures. They appear to have done little to change the Cup of Fire, concentrating most of their efforts into the terraforming program and the social engineering programs on six worlds across local space.

Approximately two and a half millennia ago, roughly five hundred years before the disaster that wiped out the Engineers on LV-223, there appears to have been some kind of civil war. Precise details are not available to me, however it is clear that the Enkindlers were but one faction involved in the conflict. Ownership of the facility on LV-223 appears to have changed three times before the Burners took possession at the end of the war.

The Burners appear to be a much more aggressive faction than the Enkindlers. They make reference to some kind of war or disaster and the need for protection. They also appear to regard the social engineering program with derision, choosing to view the species being targeted as a waste of resources. With the Cup of Fire and full access to the facility, they began working on a way to clear unwanted life from these worlds so that they could begin colonizing them. The Serpents were one of seven weapons that they were working on which were intended to be used against primitive Humans.

A second civil war, this time led by the Enkindlers, appears to have arisen. From the notes that I have found the Burners felt that they were being threatened not merely culturally, but with actual eradication, and accelerated their research to dangerous levels. The escape of the Serpents two thousand years ago, and their subsequent eradication of the Engineers from this world, is a testament to the effectiveness of their design.

The records are unclear about what occurred elsewhere; reports that I can access appear to have become fragmentary, detailing either minor details or significant events, but clearly finding no time for anything in-between. That several ships left the planet after the Serpents escaped is clear, though little beyond that.

I conclude from all of this that the Engineer we met had not in fact changed his mind or lost faith in Humanity: he had never had faith in Humanity in the first place. Given the apparently fractured nature of their society two thousand years ago, and the lack of contact since then, I may have to conclude that the Engineers may no longer exist. And if they do, I have to question what their opinion of us will be.


End file.
